Modern personal devices are intended for a multitude of activities and measurements: GPS navigation, heart beat rate monitoring, motion sensing, compasses, altimeters, diving computers and so on. Many devices integrate a selection of several measuring instruments into the same wristop device, trying to satisfy a multitude of needs related to health, exercise and/or outdoor activities of the user. Also, specific sports like diving is becoming technically more complex, e.g. due to more complex mixed gas diving practices and dive gear being used, and due to the continuing technical development and miniaturization of computing devices and their displays.
Another developing trend in these devices relates to their connectivity to external devices like smartphones and personal computers, and thereby also to the internet and social media. Connections to external computing power is thus extending beyond traditional data collection and reporting on a computer screen.
Examples of multi-purpose devices with communication capabilities (and needs) are presented in WO 02/067449, U.S. Pat. No. 6,556,222, GB2431522 and CH 698848. More specialized devices, e.g. diving computers, are presented in U.S. Pat. No. 5,899,204, U.S. Pat. No. 7,310,549, US2010/0250208 presenting algorithms for gas mixture and ascending time calculation, U.S. Pat. No. 5,845,235 and US2007/0283953 which shows programmable displays for diving computers, the latter making use of modern software technologies and dot matrix displays to design the diving computer display views on a PC. However, for many reasons, and especially in critical application like in diving computers, a “total freedom” for a user to re-design a user interface does not come without drawbacks and risks. First, the “look and feel” experience that has been carefully designed by the manufacturer, to let the average user get the most out of the device, may be lost. Secondly, access paths to critical data may be made too complicated, unnecessary duplicated, or totally disenabled.